I installed my intake yesterday. I bought the intake gasket set that Dart listed (FelPro 1204).

I noticed that the water ports don't match up as well as I thought. The port on the head is higher than the hole in the gasket. It still matches up, but only half the upper part of the gasket is touching the head.

Is this a "take the intake off and do it again" kinda thing?

 

I'm running the 180's port matched to a 1205. The water ports seem to sit about 1/10" higher or so for some reason. Even with that being said I haven't had any leaks or anything in the past 2000 miles. I wouldn't worry about it too much.

 

Cool. I have the 180's also. I'm glad to see that you haven't had any leaks. That being said I'm gonna go put more stuff back together.

thanks!

 

Did you guys have a lot of casting flash on your 180's?

My friend bought the barecastings but was pretty bummed about the amount of cleanup needed.

 

I bought my Dart 180's assembled. They were clean as could be. I still blew them off with the air hose just in case there were metal shavings hiding.

 

That's interesting, I wonder if they ship a bit "unfinished" when bare? We'll have to give'em a call and find out, thanks.

 

I bought mine used off of a guy, so I'm not sure how they originally came, but the ports were kinda not the smoothest. I'm not real sure how to describe it. There was some flash in the ports that I cleaned up, and compared to the GM castings they seemed to be rougher. I still like them a lot and they seem to work a lot better than what I had on there.

 

They're machined well where it counts: just before and after the valve seats. The port throats are a bit rough but that's not really a flow-critical area. I did smooth the transition from the machined area to the port throuat slightly as there was a little "lip" there where stuff didn't line up perfectly. My water passages don't line up perfectly either, but never a problem sealing them up.